Ashes in the Wind (24 page)

“None at all, Captain.”

With a wry smile, he offered his hand to help her down. “Al doesn’t seem to fit anymore. Then, of course, there’s Lainie.” At her glare, he shook his head and laughed. “I think not.”

Cole refrained from resting a hand on the small of her back as he escorted her to his apartment door, no matter how natural the urge was to lay it there. As for Alaina, she was apprehensive about entering his apartment, for she no longer had the guise of Al to protect her from those eyes that touched her like she had never been touched before. She waited in troubled silence as he unlocked the door, then glanced around as hurrying footsteps came toward them.

“Captain! Captain Latimer!”

A young lieutenant rapidly approached Cole with a hand held out in greeting, prompting Alaina to turn quickly aside. She sensed Cole moving to
block the man’s view of her and was grateful for that small bit of consideration.

“I heard that you had gotten married and moved out, Captain,” the man chortled, eagerly pumping Cole’s hand. “What are you doing back here at this unsaintly hour?”

Cole frowned, realizing the lieutenant had not given up his inquisitive ways or altered his reputation as the worst gossip in the Union Army.

“It’s been a long night, lieutenant, and my wife has had a considerable shock.” And that certainly was no falsehood. “Will you excuse us?”

“Of course, sir. I didn’t mean to impose—”

Cole held the door open for Alaina to precede him, set the wicker case just inside the entrance, and lit a lamp before turning to close the portal. The soldier still lingered in the hall and was craning his neck to get a better glimpse of the black-garbed figure. Cole’s gaze cooled, and he left the man no other choice but to make a hasty departure as he bade in a flat tone, “Goodnight, Baxter.”

He pushed the door shut and listened to the fading footsteps, then turned to find Alaina staring at him accusingly.

“I gave you freedom with my name, but I think you’ve carried it a bit far, sir. You let the man think I was Mrs. Latimer.”

Cole shrugged indolently. “If I let him think you’re my wife, you won’t be bothered by other men while I’m gone, and Baxter will have little to gossip about when I’m here.”

“How cozy for you,” she observed with arid sarcasm.

Cole’s brows came together in a harsh scowl as her words pricked his anger. “Perhaps I should consider that you owe me some recompense for letting me marry another woman.” His ire grew as he thought about it. “Should I be grateful? Did you enrich my life by your silence? Girl, I would have been far better off had you not played your game with me.”

Eyeing him uncertainly, Alaina removed her bonnet and ran trembling fingers through her short-cropped hair. He stood before her, tall and powerful, his face austere, his eyes challenging. Knowing he was right, she found no worthy retort or other trace of the reckless bravado that had brought her through thus far.

“I’ll go,” Cole announced more gently, recognizing her fear. He carried her valise into the bedroom where he lit another lamp on the bedside table. He looked at her as she came to stand at the end of the bed and found it hard to drag his eyes away from that fascinating visage. How could she have fooled him so completely? “You know where everything is,” he stated slowly. “I’ll leave a key for you. Be sure to lock the door after I’ve gone.”

“I will,” she murmured timidly, lowering her gaze from his.

“Alaina—” The name came from his lips like a wind sighing through the trees. He reached out to caress a short, silky strand of hair between his fingers, but she snatched away and self-consciously covered her head with an arm.

“I told you!” Her voice caught in a ragged cry. “I don’t like to be pawed!”

Cole dropped his hand and let out a long, steadying breath. “I’ll be back later on this morning and bring some food.”

“I don’t need your handouts,” Alaina murmured. “I can take care of myself.”

Cole’s gaze skimmed over her casually. “I made my assessments regarding your success at doing that the first day we met, when you were half starved. I haven’t changed my opinion since.” Returning to the parlor, he removed a slicker from an armoire and moved to the door where he promised, “I’ll be back.”

He strode out, closing the portal behind him, and Alaina quickly locked it and leaned weakly against it. She could not bear to stay the night in his apartment, to sleep in his bed, to know his possessions surrounded her. He belonged to Roberta, and she could have no part of him.

Anxiously she set to work. She knew what she must do. Though she was weary, she could not stay longer than the moments it would take to change her disguise. She flung open her valise and, stripping the garments from her body, carefully folded them into the case, then donned in their stead the boy’s clothes. A long shudder of revulsion passed through her as she once more sooted her face and arms from the blackened fireplace and jammed the filthy hat down over her hair.

As soon as she felt it safe, she left the apartment. This time it was Al who stealthily crept on bare feet down the stairs, but as she rounded the last corner, she found herself face to face with Lieutenant Baxter, bleary eyed and wrapped in a flannel robe and carrying a porcelain pitcher in his hand. Giving not so much as a pause, she spoke his name clearly and accompanied it with a brisk,
“Good-morning, suh,” and brushed quickly past him. Before the young man’s muddled brain could sort this out, the lad had ducked down the stairs and was gone from sight.

Lieutenant Baxter stared dumbly after the boy, considering the dozen or so courses of action open to him, the more rabid of which entailed rousing the whole complex for a search and chase. In his mind he imagined the dour faces of the colonels, majors, and captains as they were rudely roused from their slumber at this ungodly hour. After a moment Baxter shrugged, mumbled a soothing word to himself, and returned quietly to his bed.

Alaina paused in the shadow of the portico to slip on her woolen socks and outsized boots, then moved away from the Pontalba Apartments as casually as a ragamuffin urchin could without bringing unwanted attention down upon his head. She had left Jackson Square well behind when she espied a heavy dray wagon lumbering northward on some early morning delivery. The driver dozed in his seat and took no notice of the lad who swung himself up on the tailgate nor his descent when they crossed the river road.

It was Mrs. Hawthorne’s custom to rise early to enjoy the hazy mists of the Deep South’s dawns. She usually greeted the sun with a stroll in her flower garden, but this morning she was surprised when she opened her back door and found the small form of “Al” seated on a wicker suitcase and huddled sound asleep against the railing of her porch. With tender compassion, the old woman knelt and, placing
her arm about the other’s shoulders, gently shook Alaina until the gray eyes fluttered open.

“Come, child,” she urged. Raising her guest to her feet, Mrs. Hawthorne guided Alaina to a settee in the parlor where she gently pressed her down and spread a huge knitted shawl over her. The young face gave a brief smile of thanks, but the exhausted Alaina could muster little else.

“Sleep, child,” Mrs. Hawthorne commanded softly. “You are safe, and I will wake you when breakfast is ready.”

Much refreshed after a hearty breakfast, Alaina leaned back to sip the hot, strong but effective coffee the woman had made especially for her and glanced briefly at the clock. “You shouldn’t have let me sleep so late, Mrs. Hawthorne. It’s almost ten.”

“The rest did you good, Alaina.” The woman did not seem in the least bit sorry. “But what’s this you tell me about your captain? You wish to avoid him, too?”

“Him, most of all!” Alaina snapped vehemently. “I’ve just had enough of that simpering bluebelly lording it over me wherever I go.”

“I see.” Mrs. Hawthorne considered the suddenly irate and nervous young girl for a long moment. “Well! Have you made any plans?”

“I’m going home. Before Briar Hill is sold, I’d like to take a last look at it.” It was as much as she would admit, and the thought of some Yankee slouching in her mother’s parlor made her throat tighten to a degree that further words would have been difficult.

“But, child, how will you travel?” Mrs. Hawthorne insisted.

Alaina chewed her lip in consternation. “If I told you, the Yankees could make you tell or put you in jail. I just can’t place you in that kind of trouble.”

Her hostess burst out into carefree laughter, and when the woman leaned forward, the brown eyes were bright with anticipation. “Listen to me, young lady. I haven’t had so much fun and excitement in years. Why, since you came, my blood has started flowing again. I was afraid I was doomed to a dreary, fading end, but now I can hardly wait to see what happens next. In my day I handled better men than any I’ve seen lately, with the possible exception of your Yankee captain. Do you honestly think I’d let you wander off without helping you? Anyway”—the old woman made an imperious gesture to Alaina’s garb—“Doctor Latimer knows about your disguise now.”

Alaina chafed at the reminder. “And he knows about the widow, too. That mangy critter will probably track me down just for the meanness of it.”

“You’ve been a boy too long, Alaina,” Mrs. Hawthorne observed. “A young lady watches her language more carefully.”

Alaina lowered her gaze, remembering Cole’s objection to her less than ladylike ways. She had gotten too far into the habit of Al to shake it quickly.

The older woman consulted the clock. “I daresay, your captain will be here before dark. We’ll have to move with some speed to see you gone from here before he arrives.”

“We?” Alaina’s eyebrows rose sharply, but Mrs. Hawthorne had already bustled off into the
kitchen. She came back after a moment bearing a small crock filled with a dark brown, ichorous fluid which she placed ceremoniously in the middle of the table.

“This is butternut stain,” she explained. “It’s used to color wool and other fabrics but few realize it can stain the skin, too. It’s quite durable and lasts perhaps as much as a week or two.” She paused and her eyes gleamed again with excitement. “If you mixed it with cottonseed oil and applied it right, you could pass as a mulatto.”

“But that would be even more dangerous. I could get waylaid or caught as a runaway slave.” Alaina had a right to be apprehensive.

Mrs. Hawthorne could hardly contain her bubbling spirit. She leaned closer. “I have a friend across the river in Gretna. He’s wealthy and quite independent. He thinks all Yankees are fools and all rebels misguided. I know he will help.”

Cole had caught a few hours of sleep in the dayroom at the hospital, then had been tied up setting his various affairs in order for the coming campaign. As soon as he was free, however, he returned to his apartment with a bundle of food and a large clothier’s box beneath his arm. To purchase a gown and suitable accessories on Sunday had been difficult, but he had managed to bribe a couturiere to open her shop.

His first light rap on the door brought no response, and though he knocked louder, no sound of movement could be detected in the apartment. It suddenly dawned on him that Alaina might be gone. Dragging forth a key, he opened the door and
entered, setting his purchases aside on the table as he called out.

“Alaina? Alaina!” His voice sharpened as he strode rapidly through the rooms. In another moment he found that his first assumption had been correct. She had gone with her meager possessions, not even staying long enough to rest, for the bed was only rumpled slightly where he had left her case.

“Damn!” He was angry with himself for having trusted her, for allowing her to slip through his fingers so easily. He could only surmise that she was well on her way to her destination, wherever that happened to be.

Seeking out Lieutenant Baxter, Cole was told that no one had been seen leaving around the hour he indicated except a tattered little beggar boy. Cole didn’t wait to answer the man’s inquiries about the youth, but left in a rush. He ran back to his buggy, this time wheeling it about and heading toward Doctor Brooks’s. But at the older man’s door, the black housekeeper only shrugged at the question put to her.

“No, suh. De doctah ain’t here, and no one’s been calling terday.”

Cole’s scowl deepened as he retreated from the house. There was one other place he knew of where Alaina might be, and that was Mrs. Hawthorne’s. Anxious to catch the girl before she extended the distance between them to parts unknown to him, he grew increasingly frustrated at the delays and the slow pace of the buggy. He chided himself for having been so misguided as to believe Alaina would actually stay where he had bade her. The little vixen was bound to drive him ragged before the day was out.

When he arrived at Mrs. Hawthorne’s, his long strides carried him quickly across the porch where he pounded a fist upon the door until he heard sounds of movement from within. He waited, slapping his gauntlets irritably against a lean thigh, and was soon met with a bright, welcoming smile.

“Why, Captain! What brings you out here?”

“Has Alaina MacGaren been here?” he asked as the woman led him into the parlor.

Mrs. Hawthorne turned wonderingly. “My goodness, Captain, what could you be wanting with her?”

His frown grew ominous, and she saw his eyes flit toward the ragged case which stood where Alaina had left it. He faced her, and the question blazed in his countenance.

“The girl is gone, Captain. There’s no need for you to search here for her. She left the baggage behind.”

“Where?” he roared. “Where did she go?”

Mrs. Hawthorne shrugged, smiling sweetly, “Texas maybe. She had some friends over there. Or maybe it was Mississippi. Seems like I heard her say her father’s people came from there. Or maybe—”

Cole growled, raising the woman’s eyebrows, and strode angrily to the wicker case. Squatting down, he flung it open and searched through the widow’s weeds, petticoats, pantaloons, threadbare robe, and lastly, the ragged garments of the boy. He came to his feet with a curse. Who the hell was she now? He whirled and found the woman watching him calmly.